


at the end of the world

by SilverRollu



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6078042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverRollu/pseuds/SilverRollu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He dreams of a mirror shattering into countless little shards, so small they’re almost like dust scattering to the wind. His reflection goes with it, and with his reflection goes he.</p>
            </blockquote>





	at the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for the end half of the anime/game
> 
> i'm sorry if anything reads weird, because i've only watched the anime so far (i'm planning on getting the game soon enough, however, because it looks fun)

When the doctor explains to Luke that the fonons in his body are separating, that he’s going to break apart and disappear one day, he’s not sure what he should be doing. There was a point where he didn’t understand any of it — fonons, the score, Lorelei — and now that he does he wishes, for a fleeting moment, that he could be ignorant again. Once that moment passes, come and gone like the other jumbled, racing thoughts in his mind, he’s left with this bone numbing fear. He’s going to die. Luke doesn’t want to die. Just as he realizes that he wants to live, to become something better than what he was before, to become his own person, he’s going to die.

That fear settles in his chest like a heavy stone, hard and immovable. He leaves the doctor. He lies to his friends. All but Jade, the ever so vigilant genius, who sees right through him easily. Talking to him relieves the pressure for a bit, but _only_ for a bit.

When Luke sleeps that night he dreams of a mirror shattering into countless little shards, so small they’re almost like dust scattering to the wind. His reflection goes with it, and with his reflection goes he.

* * *

 

Perhaps Luke isn’t very good at this deception thing.

He doesn’t mean to have an episode in front of Tear; it just happens, very unexpectedly, and very, very unwelcome. The pain is sharp, not unlike the headaches he had been burdened with ever since he was born seven years ago. But it’s not an isolated pain, instead taking him wholly and fully, like every muscle in his body contracting all at once. He yells, unintentionally. He falls to his knees. Tear and Mieu are at his side almost immediately.

At first Luke isn’t completely aware of her. When he opens his eyes, instead of seeing his own arms and hands he sees nothing. And then, suddenly, he sees himself, as if he were a bird hovering high and above, and he sees himself fading away, crumbling into dust. That stone in his chest is choking him. He wants to scream. Instead what comes out is a weak whimper between clenched teeth.

“Luke!”

“Master!”

The voices break him out of his waking reverie, and Luke realizes where they are, who he’s with. He tries to hide his fading arms, his shame. Tear doesn’t let him.

“I’ll go get the colonel,” Tear says.

“No! It’s okay!” Luke shakes his head, as if willing it to stop. And on some level he’s trying to. “It’s going away now…” And it does, after another agonizing moment. He takes in a deep, shaky breath now that the pain is gone, though he’s trembling. The images in his head won’t leave, however. He stares at his hands. He sees them crumbling to dust every time he blinks his eyes.

“Maybe you should talk to the colonel anyway?” Tear suggests.

Luke wants to say that he has spoken to Jade, the morning after learning of his condition. He wants to explain how, when Jade told him that he isn’t sure of a way to help, that Luke should take it easy now that he’s a terminal patient, that those red eyes were sad. He wants to explain the hopelessness.

Instead he says, “It’s not something Jade can fix.”

On some level, he’s glad Tear knows. He wasn’t too sure how well he’d be able to hide this from anyone let alone Tear Grants, with her strong, searching eyes and caring spirit. The first person to trust him when no one else would. He trembles, and she takes his shaking hand in hers. He cries for the first time since finding out, right then and there.

This time he dreams of darkness and nothing else.

* * *

 

Crying once means that he wants to cry all the time. As he sits with his friends, cycling through countless conversation topics and jokes and reassuring smiles, Luke wants to scream. There’s a sob stuck in the back of his throat, burning, threatening to tear out of him at any moment.

At this point he's plagued by an unshakable exhaustion, just more proof that everything about his fake body is starting to fail him. The only thing holding him together now is the adrenaline, the kind that only comes with the burden of having an entire world to save, to fight for, to protect.

Luke closes his eyes and sees the light that will engulf him, the numbing pain, the burning. The flashing images, the trembling of his fingers in his fists, clenched tight; they’re all so stunningly real, and he wishes, so much, that it won’t end.

Luke opens his eyes and everything moves, and it never stops.

 


End file.
